Figuring out adaptation issues for infrastructure in Canada

Jed Anderson in the Castlegar News describes how one Canadian group is grappling with adaptation: A group of engineers from the Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee (PIEVC) were in Castlegar on April 12 to participate in a workshop on infrastructure vulnerability due to climate change. Some of the PIEVC engineers and technicians traveled from as far as Edmonton and Winnipeg to attend the Impacts and the Process for Adaptation workshop. They met with local engineers, Columbia Basin Trust employees, the Ministry of Transportation, and municipal officials from Castlegar, the Slocan Valley and Nelson.

The focus of the meeting was a consideration of Castlegar’s storm water collection capacity in the light of expected changes in the local climate. PIEVC engineer Jeff O’Driscoll explained that through a process of group activities, the participants would be able to “learn by doing” in order to implement a climate change analysis in Castlegar themselves.

O’Driscoll described the process as a tutorial. The group activity came after a series of presentations. Participants were instructed to analyze data on a theoretical prairie community called Anyville in order to learn how to work through the process of a climate change adaptation study.

Monday’s meeting was part of the Communities Adapting to Climate Change Initiative underway in Castlegar since winter. The initiative aims to help the City and residents deal with expected changes to weather patterns due to climate change….

Side shot of the Alexandra Bridge in British Columbia. This bridge carries traffic along the Trans-Canada Highway over the Fraser River. Shot by Nebrot, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license